Quantitative assessment of damage evolution of carbon fiber‐reinforced polymer laminates embedded with different nanoparticles using acoustic emission

Abstract

Nanoparticles can be used to optimize the interface structure and improve the mechanical properties of fiber‐reinforced composites. Herein, the damage evolution of carbon fiber‐reinforced composites embedded with different nanoparticles has been investigated using acoustic emission (AE) technology. Principal component analysis is used to reduce the dimension of AE parameters. Combining fuzzy C‐means (FCM) clustering with hierarchical clustering can improve the clustering quality, which is helpful to apply FCM results to the quantitative evaluation of damage. For multiwalled carbon nanotubes, graphene, and cellulose nanofibres, the cumulative AE energy of matrix cracking increases by 39.29%, 51.12%, and 53.69%, respectively, that of fiber/matrix debonding increases by 13.5%, 118.5% and 56.58%, and that of fiber breakage decreases by 97.9%, 94.32%, and 87.6%, respectively. The addition of nanoparticles helps to improve the stiffness and toughness of epoxy resin, and restricts crack propagation, thus enhancing the interfacial properties. AE technology can successfully help quantitatively evaluate the damage behavior and the mechanism of different multiscale reinforced composites. AE characteristic responses within the composites are consistent with scanning electron microscopy results.

Damage evolution of polymer matrix composites reinforced by nanoparticles modified under the three-point bending test by acoustic emission methods

“…Furthermore, the presence of individual signals corresponding to fiber fracture in the elastic region may be due to those as mentioned earlier which leads to the fibers being individually damaged and fracturing under small loads. 28 As seen in Figure 6(c), the displacement difference of recorded AE events associated with interfacial damage, and matrix cracks is almost the same for both samples containing 3 wt.% nano-clay and nano-silica. Nevertheless, the signals related to fiber breakage in the sample containing 3 wt.% nano-silica appeared at a lower load.…”

“…To validate the results, and study the stage of damage propagation, they used AE method. In order to evaluate the damage progression of carbon fiber-reinforced composites that also have multiwalled carbon nanotubes, graphene, and cellulose nanofibers embedded in them, Zhou et al 28 conducted a tensile test utilizing the AE approach. When laminated composite specimens were exposed to low-velocity impact (LVI), Hoseinlaghab et al 29 investigated the identification of main damage processes using the AE approach.…”